Thursday, November 29, 2012

Atlantic Crossing Westbound, November 29, 2012

It has been an eventful 24 hours. We have had:
Squalls with winds to 35 knots,
Catastrophic failure of our wheel steering (and the vane steering that depends on it,)
Failure of the shackle that holds the main sheet to the traveler,
A poetry reading
(But not in that order...)

We lost the wheel steering to a pressed in part in the Edson steering that failed. We took it apart this morning and determined that we could not repair it at sea. This leaves us with two of our four redundant and separate steering systems: the Autohelm autopilot and the emergency tiller. So we continue on our merry way!
The icing on the cake was when the main sheet came free from the traveler. This was a simple fix. It required finding a new shackle and replacing the broken one. Fortunately we had a spare that worked on board.

The crew is well and accepting that some things break and we have sufficient backup systems to continue. It is been continuously overcast and we are all hoping for a decent couple of days of sunshine.